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Hello all!
I’ll be moving to Chengdu next month, and I was wondering if anyone had any guidebooks that they wanted to recommend. I already bought the Lonely Planet China guide, but if anyone has found useful guidebooks that focused on Chengdu and/or the surrounding areas, please let me know!
Oh and do you think carbon filter/anti-pollution face mask would be needed in Chengdu? I am considering buying one before I leave the U.S. Anything else I should buy in the U.S. that one cannot find in China?
Thanks!
Ellen
Id just buy all guides you might need after you arrive, they have a collection in airport and every tourist office around has them.
Map is a must.
Mask is advised, it aint Beijing here but still.
I would probably just use the internet. Haven’t used Lonely Planet for years with sites like Wikitravel being free and constantly updated. A map would be helpful, I got a big one and put it on my wall when I first came to Chengdu, I think it helped a lot.
No need to buy a mask in advance I think, come here and if you want one, you can get masks here. They sell the cheap kind at 7-11’s and you can get Respros at the Natooke bicycle shop.
Thanks for your input, Al and Charlie. I guess I’m pretty old school 😉 I like to have guidebooks for every place I travel to – having something tangible and readily accessible in my hands when I’m on foreign soil puts my mind at ease. You never know how accessible internet will be when you are on the road!
Here’s another old school question for ya – how easy is it to buy unlocked DVD players (including Blu Ray) in Chengdu? I want to take some of my favorite movies on DVD with me, and obviously they are Region 1… Wondering if I should take a DVD player from the U.S. or buy an unlocked one in Chengdu.
If your answer is ‘I haven’t watched a DVD in years’, then I guess I have turned into a dinosaur at a young age… it’s my obsession with tangibility! LOL
This is China. I wouldn’t worry about finding something like that. Also, they throw DVD’s and Blu-Rays to your face over here for 8-12RMB per disk (less than $2), so you might as well buy them again, save space/weight, and keep yours in good condition.
Ellen, to reiterate what’s said above, you don’t need to bring anything. Internet is widely accessible in China, once you arrive and get a data plan for phone, even more so for when you’re in the remote places without free wifi. Lonely planet/etc will be out of date, things change quickly in China for the most part, and you can get anything you need on the ground, or like.. http://www.jd.com.
However, I do suggest bringing some specific types of easy to transport foods with you, some specific things aren’t easy to find – for example, when I fly back, I typically bring powdered sauce mixes: classic sauce mixes (like bernaise), gravy mixes, taco seasoning, sometimes pasta sauce mixes.
Here’s another old school question for ya – how easy is it to buy unlocked DVD players (including Blu Ray) in Chengdu? I want to take some of my favorite movies on DVD with me, and obviously they are Region 1… Wondering if I should take a DVD player from the U.S. or buy an unlocked one in Chengdu. If your answer is ‘I haven’t watched a DVD in years’, then I guess I have turned into a dinosaur at a young age… it’s my obsession with tangibility! LOL
Definitely do not bring DVDs here! That’s like bringing rice to China. There is absolutely no need for that when you can get them here cheaper than literally anywhere else on earth.
Good idea, Rick (about the seasonings)!
I don’t support counterfeited goods tho :/ 99% of the time, they’re total crap! Plus I have a very particular taste in movies, and I doubt these rare titles are popular in China.
How would you go about buying an unlocked DVD player when you don’t speak Chinese? Kinda afraid of getting ripped off and having no recourse… 😛
Good idea, Rick (about the seasonings)! I don’t support counterfeited goods tho :/ 99% of the time, they’re total crap! Plus I have a very particular taste in movies, and I doubt these rare titles are popular in China. How would you go about buying an unlocked DVD player when you don’t speak Chinese? Kinda afraid of getting ripped off and having no recourse…
You know that “legal” movies barely even exist here, right? There are virtually no locked DVD players here. Any DVD player should work.
“and I doubt these rare titles are popular in China.”
You would be SO, SO surprised.
My friend is really into movies that you can’t typically find. When he visited, we went to one of the little dvd hole in the carparks beneath one of the computer cities, he was like, ‘holy shit, how did they end up with this’ to several titles. I can tell you a friend wanted to find Caligula for ages, and it wasn’t until he was perusing through the stacks of boxed DVDs that it was found on DVD-9, looking authentic as ever. While you may have some trouble finding some specific titles, you would also end up finding some gems just out of sheer luck.
Charlie is right – finding ‘authentic’ goods in China isn’t worth the effort, chances are, if you find something priced to be authentic in the DVD sphere, it’s not authentic anyways and you’re just lying to yourself. RE: Region free DVDs or whatever, China sells region-locked DVD players? Wa? Never knew. If you’re concerned, bring the DVDs you want to play or are concerned about to a shop that sells players, try them, they’ll let you — for me, I’d just buy a cheap ass blue-ray player or whatever off jd.com – couple hundred rmb delivered tomorrow to your door. 🙂
Thanks for the tips! Yeah what was I thinking, that DVD players in China would be region locked.. pffftt! Silly me 🙂
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